Victoria’s digital industry: the landscape and the future

The Victorian tech industry is thriving. Whether you need agritech from the countryside or WordPress development in Melbourne, Victoria has it all.

Everyone involved, from the industry to the government, is committed to keeping Victoria at the cutting edge of digital innovation, and the results are showing Melbourne is Australia’s technology hub, with 62 ASX-listed digital technology companies worth a combined $203 billion. In total, Victoria is home to more than 25,000 businesses in the sector, with yearly revenues totalling nearly $129 billion. 

Digital technology is a very broad sector, encompassing a diverse range of industries from telecommunications to software development. In this article, we’ll dive into just some of the impressive and exciting digital ventures happening in Victoria.  

Information and communication technology

Melbourne is a major hub for the Australian telecommunications industry, and the IT/ICT industry at large. Victoria hosts over 22,500 ICT businesses, with net revenues of over $30 billion in FY 2022. A large portion of those revenues – as much as two thirds of the total figure – come from Australia’s single largest company, the ubiquitous telecom conglomerate Telstra. Founded and headquartered in Melbourne, the once publicly owned communications monopoly was spun off into a private business in 1996 and is currently in the midst of a restructure designed to curtail corporate bloat and divest the cellular service part of the company from its once-dominant infrastructure business. Despite its multiple reorgs, Telstra still captures more than 40 per cent of the nation’s mobile retail market.

But Telstra is far from the only major player in Victoria’s ICT scene. Melbourne also hosts Australian offices of some of the world’s biggest and most consequential international IT giants, including heavyweights like IBM, Amazon, Cisco, Fujitsu, Accenture, Motorola Solutions, and many others.

Melbourne has birthed plenty of its own IT services companies, too. One example is A Cloud Guru, an IT industry leader in providing IT certifications and other tech-related professional development services, it was founded in and still operates primarily out of their Melbourne office. There are also multiple IT service management companies that help keep Australia’s businesses connected and running smoothly that make Melbourne their headquarters.

Software

Melbourne is also the home of many prominent Australian software companies. It’s a major hub for software development within Australia, and hosts some of Australia’s most successful and well-known software companies.

Australia has a particularly highly regarded fintech development scene. Aussie-native Afterpay, a provider of micro-loans for financing individual purchases that has now spread into international markets including the US, UK, Ireland, and New Zealand, keeps their head office in Melbourne. MYOB, Australia’s top accounting software company, was also founded and keeps its head office in Cremorne. Melbourne is also a major hub for blockchain developers, including Appster, TechAlchemy, Protonshub Technologies, and SoluLab.

There are a few notable players in ecommerce in Melbourne, too. Redbubble has become one of the world’s biggest marketplaces for art and custom design work, competing with global giant Etsy. Envato, founded in Sydney but now headquartered on Flinders St in the heart of Melbourne, is another up-and-coming ecommerce platform targeting digital artists and photographers who produce and sell stock photos and videos, templates, and royalty-free music.

Melbourne is also home to a substantial scene for B2B / outsourced software development. Vrinsoft is widely regarded as one of the best mobile app development company in Melbourne, and indeed one of the best in the world. They deliver bespoke solutions to a wide range of industries, including high-profile international clients like Saudia, the flagship airline of Saudi Arabia, and WH Group, one of the world’s largest meat shipping and processing companies. Melbourne hosts a long list of other internationally reputable software development firms, including Fingent, Terasol Technologies, and Cloudester.

Hi-tech hardware

Melbourne is no slouch when it comes to hardware, either. One of the biggest reasons for IBM’s investments in the city is its relationship with the University of Melbourne. The two partners to do research on cutting-edge quantum computing hardware at the Quantum Hub in Southbank. This should be no mystery, as Australia is reputed to rank 12th globally in public investment into quantum technologies and holds 10 per cent of global quantum science talent, largely thanks to impressive programs at schools like the University of Melbourne, Monash University, and RMIT.

Quantum isn’t the only sensitive technology that Melbourne specialises in, either. Cutting-edge manufacturers like Extel and Senetas, both high-tech hardware specialists, have no trouble finding fresh talent and manufacturing one-of-a-kind tech in the city. Senetas, a global leader in quantum-resistant encryption, designs hardware for global giants and sources manufacturing for its most sensitive products exclusively from Extel, a Mount Waverley manufacturer that supports aerospace and defence companies, green tech designers, transportation companies, and wearable technology makers.

The future

Victoria doesn’t seem to have any intention of taking its foot off the brakes, or sacrificing the tech leadership that its flagship city has been cultivating. The Victorian government feels that the winds of change are blowing in the tech industry and wants to throw fuel on the fire. Its Digital Strategy 2021-2026 establishes three primary goals: creating better, fairer, more accessible services, building a digital-ready public sector, and fostering a thriving digital economy. To that end, Victoria has announced a suite of new investments through Breakthrough Victoria, a $2 billion technology investment fund, aiming to bring high tech design and manufacturing jobs to the state. These include investments of up to $37 million in remote sensing and stratospheric balloon manufacturer World View, quantum computing startup Quantum Brilliance, and electric motor and magnetic materials specialists Kite Magnetics. The state has also begun actively promoting its Subclass 188 and Subclass 888 sisa nominations, seeking to attract fresh international talent and investment from key technology hubs around the globe.

As the Education State, it should be no surprise that Victoria is a shining gem in Australia’s technology industry. With a vibrant and progressive local culture, strong universities, and consistent and intelligent public investments in cutting-edge technologies, the state’s lead within the country is not likely to slow down any time soon.